If I told you that within my "Drafts" folder reside unfinished posts dating back to 2016... well, you would likely believe me, seeing how bad I am at keeping up with this blog. All shall be brought to light eventually, but for today, my final post of the year, I have prepared a travel log of a trip that I went on with my parents and fiancé in the October of 2018 in the hopes that the upcoming year will hear my call and send us on more wonderful adventures. Yes, indeed, this is the story of our trip to Japan! But not just yet... five hours after taking off from Sofia Airport, we were to spend an eight-and-a-half-hour layover in Doha, Qatar.

Frankly, everything I can tell you about Qatar, to put this into context, you could easily learn from a simple Google search. Its history dates far back into Antiquity, with settlements as old as 50 000 years having been unearthed in the peninsula. The earliest known written accounts of the peninsula's inhabitants come from the mid-first century AD by a Roman writer known as Pliny the Elder, dubbing the locals Catharrei, possibly deriving from the name of a prominent local settlement. Another theory behind the name is that it comes from the Arabic katran, meaning tar or resin, in reference to petroleum. Despite being a tiny speck in the western corners of Asia in our modern world, it somehow manages to produce the fourth highest greenhouse gas emissions and also the highest per capita income in the world. Indeed, once one of the poorest countries along the Gulf shorelines, it has amassed a wealth large enough to support its futuristic architectural vision of traditional Arabic design. But I am getting ahead of myself; before we immerse ourselves in the night lights of Doha, we must pass through the strict border control in Hamad International Airport. Luckily, the airport provides a guided tour service which does most of the work, such as tourist visas and passport checks, for you, but they do allocate a solid hour aside from the full tour solely for security measures. If you haven't the 5 hours necessary for these tours, you will be happy to know that Hamad International Airport actually houses several art installations aiming to introduce foreigners to Qatari culture.

The Museum of Islamic Art

Life in a Continental Climate area has moulded me into subconsciously expecting night time to be cold, or at least chill. Hence why, when I stepped out from the sweet air-conditioned airport and was hit by a wall of dry air and sweltering heat, I had to take a moment to process what had just happened. Looking around at the other tourists, I clearly wasn't the only one. Our guides, both Indonesian expats with bright smiles, ushered us to the cool tour bus and handed everyone a bottle of much-needed water. And so we set out on the motorway to Doha beneath a constant stream of colour-changing fluorescent lights.

Our first 10-minute photo stop was the spot for those city-scape shots that you see on every tourist photo and every postcard from the country. To our left, we were greeted by the infamous skyline of Dafna Park (the first image above), which is a well-kept green promenade along the banks - ideal for picnics and evening jogs. It even has charging stations every few meters. To our right loomed the Museum of Islamic art (pictured above) which, though I would have been interested in visiting, was already closed.

After we were rushed back to the bus (the tour times have to be very strict and controlled, after all) and offered more water, we were given a glimpse of The Pearl Island, a man-made pearl-shaped island housing only the finest (or fanciest?) restaurants and shops. We circled around the signature Pearl Monument which we were told was actually best photographed at dusk, before making our way (downtown) to Souq Waqif market.

As the sheer quantity of images I have from there suggests, Souq Waqif was likely my favourite out of all of the stops we'd made. We were given 30 minutes to explore the bustling narrow streets of the market and we used each of those to our advantage. Souq Waqif is exactly what one would imagine if they were told to picture a traditional Arabic market - low, introverted buildings made of gypsum and coral, an intricate mosaic of garments and sewing materials, dazzling jewellery and quality handicrafts, all veiled by the appetising smell of coffee and various spices. Of course, we hadn't come prepared with any Qatari riyals so shopping had to wait until next time. The only part of the market that I vocally asked my fiancé we avoid was the pet market. The cries of various animals reached us before we even saw the dozens of tiny cages stacked on top of one another and my heart dropped to my feet. Luckily, he and I are of the same mind when it comes to the matter of what constitutes as animal cruelty and we quickly swerved away into the open restaurant street.

I was entranced by the detail and colour that goes into glass decorations. I hate to use blatant clichés, but stepping inside any building adorned with such rich colours and sparkling decoration was not unlike staring into a kaleidoscope, and sometimes equally as bewildering for one with little sense of direction such as myself.

The spiral of the Abdulla Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center, visible from across the market.

Another short drive and 250 ml of water later and we were dropped off at the Katara Cultural Village (no water bending involved, sorry). This is the hotspot for many cultural festivals and exhibitions, both national and international. Its foundation is rooted in the hope for more peaceful human interaction through art and culture and, with 2.3 million out of its 2.6 million-people population, you can imagine that it is quite diverse in its shows. Of course, whilst everyone was admiring the stunning main buildings, me and the other half noticed that all of the lamp posts along the brightly-lit streets had carvings etched into them. Though we failed to find any information explaining what the engraved letters in Arabic meant, it was a nice detail. One of these days I will make good on my promise to learn Arabic, if for no reason other than how similar its writing looks to all forms of Tolkien's Elvish languages. Anybody else agree with me?

Our final stop was in the very centre of The Pearl which we'd only seen in passing up until this point. It was more heavily guarded than other areas and as soon as we beheld the spotless displays separating us from articles from high-end fashion brands, luxurious vehicles and expensive artwork we immediately understood why. I apologise to any who may be eager to see images of us posing in front of Ferraris and the like, for we had no interest in this particular area and chose to simply stay inside the bus and have a power nap before we were dropped off back at the airport.

So, final verdict? It is a tad more difficult than a mere "Yay" or "Nay", for travelling tends to endow me with rose-tinted glasses. Looking up at what I've written thus far, I can see in myself a trace of our tour guide whose main job was more focused on advertising the city to us than to guide us through its culture and history. Those who know me are aware of the fact that I am a forest-dweller at heart and large cities tend to overwhelm me more than to attract me. And Doha was large, both in scale and in modernity. And yet, despite us visiting during the ideal time for casual walks outside, everything felt a bit too empty, sterile even. The cars seemed to be more in number than the pedestrians which is always a red flag for me, all of them sparkling, new models. Qatar's main focus was clearly attracting rich visitors to its industrious capital and its holiday resorts along the Persian Gulf, but the majority of the country seems to be an arid desert land. And, although this was a brand new experience for me and I would certainly spend any long transits I may have exploring more of it, I do not have any plans to spend more time in this particular Arabic state in the foreseeable future.

If you would like an "atmospheric" video of my brief stay in Doha, please proceed to the one available on my YouTube channel:

Thank you so much for reading, and I will see you soon with more travel posts!

Season's greetings to all who may have stumbled upon this long-forgotten page. My name is Lana and since the day on which I began this blog, I have been consistently inconsistent with it, much like with the rest of my social media accounts. Nonetheless, the art of story telling through ink and image alike has remained a constant passion for me throughout the years and I have been practising it in other places, such as my Instagram, my recently-created YouTube and soon enough my Twitch as well. I have also been a passive seeker of inspiration on Tumblr (occasionally) and Pinterest. Ironically, amongst all of these platforms on which I try to be somewhat open to the public, I always seem to gravitate back to this blog which was my little safe space from the world. It is here that I was always free to post thoughts and photos with little regard for who would witness them.

What will change?

My interests and methods of self-expression have more or less evolved during my time away from this compendium of experiences (and during my time spent filling it in, to be quite frank). Thus, for a start, the blog title shall be changed from "Forgettable Tales of a White Rabbit", as beloved as that one was, to something which better reflects my current focus. I do not promise that "Definitely Not a Witch's Blog" will be its final title, but it is a good start. The domain name will have run its course fairly soon too, and I expect that I will not be purchasing a new one straight away.

Second, I will no longer be writing posts in both English and Bulgarian. Whilst translation is a passion of mine and I loved maintaining both languages (and even had aspirations of adding French into the mix), it simply does not look well in this mixture of writing and images. I have chosen to rely on English first and foremost, as it is the language shared by the majority of my friends who have expressed an interest in reading this blog. If there is enough demand for it, I will, of course, revert back to dual language mode, but for now this is the case.

On that note, I have also removed the Bulgarian version of all of my previous posts. This is in part due to the above-mentioned factors, but also because I have levelled up in the area of translation and, frankly, revisiting my writings from four years ago is far from painless, haha.

Oh, and I have also graduated from university and moved countries during my "brief" period away. That's a thing too, and material for future posts and videos as well, I suppose.

What will remain the same?

The content. Though I eventually intend to add some more linguistic musings into the mix, this little space will be just as chaotic as ever. And oh, yes, little healing spells will still be posted!

For any newcomers who are unaware of our tradition here, "little healing spells" is an ongoing series of posts dedicated to appreciating and romanticising the small things that make life worth living. One does not need to practice any form of witchcraft to perform this particularly uplifting "ritual". You can find a list of the previously published sets in my sidebar under "Curaga" (because Final Fantasy references and white magick are always essential). These things will be vastly different for everybody and so I always encourage readers to add their input in the comments as well. And with nought else left to do, I believe that it is time for me to move on to the newest instalment in the series - Little Healing Spells, Vol. X.

☽ Waking up to the realisation that it has been snowing during the night.

☽ Warm, fluffy socks.

☽ Minced pies and mulled wine.

☽ Overhearing people humming Christmas songs on the street.

☽ The light reflected from icicles.

☽ How well red, green and yellow complement each other.

☽ The stinging in your nostrils from inhaling the cool winter air.

I shall keep this post short and sweet compared to my others, as I do not want it to be overwhelming. Look forward to some very exciting travel posts (including Greece, Thailand, Qatar and Japan), as well as my usual review/recommendations, outfit posts and more healing spells.

I hope that you have a magical Yuletide, Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate, and I will (hopefully) see you soon once more.

First and foremost, I would like to wish everybody an amazing and enchanting year.

I'm starting off 2018 on this blog with an OOTD post, shot by my love Mi (who has a similar look on her own beautiful blog), because of no specific reason, other than that I feel like it. I've even done a fancy, gradual transformation from dressed with a cloak for the outdoors, to a cardigan for the chilly university classrooms, to only the bodysuit when one is at home, cuddled in front of the TV with a steaming cuppa and a cat in one's lap. Because less clothing is always good.

On a more serious note, I would like to draw everybody's attention to my necklace, handcrafted by my fae friend Elizabeth le Fay. It is made of horn, leather and amethyst, imbued with pure magic an has the Ogham rune Saille embedded into it to symbolise the willow tree, which I feel personally drawn to. Known also as "withy tree" and "sally tree", willows are connected to water and the moon, according to Celtic tradition. The alder was called the king of the waters, and the willow was his queen. The willow's connection to water is symbolic for he rlink with the otherworld, be it of the Fae, the underworld of the elders, or the realm of the gods. The willow is also sacred to the Welsh goddess-ruler of the moon Ceridwen.

I invite everybody to have a look through Elizabeth's shop to admire her beautiful creations and possibly discover their own guiding necklaces there at a 30% discount with the code "HAPPYNEWYEAR".

Is there a rune from the Ogham alphabet that you feel a connection with? Or perhaps you prefer symbols of a different origin?